Political Wisdom: The Anger That’s Growing Is on the Left

Increasingly, the most interesting anger out on the political firmament isn’t the outcry on the right over health care, which has been well-documented and illustrated, but rather the growing backlash from the left at the idea the Obama administration is backing down in the face of it all.

Robert Kuttner, on Huffingtonpost, wants President Obama to pull the plug on the whole idea of seeking bipartisanship. “Will somebody please explain to me why Barack Obama is still on his bipartisan kick?” he writes. “Ever since Obama’s first efforts to reach out to Republicans, with his cabinet appointment of two Republicans, Gates at Defense and LaHood at Transportation, and his appeasement of Republican tax-cutting demands in the stimulus package, the Republican opposition has made it clear that no goodwill gesture, no effort to meet them halfway signals anything other than weakness. They are out to destroy his presidency, pure and simple. Nothing makes this clearer than the battle over health insurance reform.” Kuttner argues that “even Chuck Grassley, the rank (I mean ranking) Republican on the Senate Finance Committee,” and target of much Democratic hope in the health debate, has been giving “aid and comfort to the Palin ‘death panel’ nonsense…The White House Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel, is said to be a tough guy. And Obama’s top political adviser, David Axelrod, is supposed to be some kind of tactical genius. What do these guys think they are getting by continuing to kiss up to the Republicans?”